Home away from home. Christian Stampfer whisks us away on a virtual tour of the 181st Oktoberfest in Munich. Even though I’ve never been, the territory will seem familiar to a New Yorker – crowded and overpriced housing, millions of liters of alcohol served, and throngs of confused tourists. Just like home.

Flexible Data. Jonathan Spira camps out for 12 days to get a new iPhone 6 on launch and is ready to tell the world what he thinks of it. The sleek design of the new phones has given birth to a new first world problem, as well as a new TV show – Apple: The Last Phonebender.

Flavor mixing. Paul Riegler flies out of Rome in Alitalia’s Ottima Business Class. Although it was a short flight to Munich, the proud Italian chefs on board insisted on serving a full five-course meal; however, in interest of time, all courses were served on the same tray at the same time. If you want to know what Alfredo Tiramisu tastes like, shoot Paul an e-mail.

Sweet suites. Henry Feintuch crashes at the Hilton Istanbul Bosphorus in Turkey. Despite its sounding very similar to Phosphorus, the hotel is not made out of a poisonous, combustible metal. Instead, as if to counteract this troubled picture, the hotel architects built the place out of gumdrops, a surprisingly resilient material.

The coronavirus is now affecting 104 countries and territories across the globe and many travelers are postponing or cancelling their travel plans as a result.
In some cases, a traveler is holding off because travel to his destination is simply not possible due to quarantine and containment rules; in others, it’s simply a desire not to go somewhere where one might end up with the coronavirus or trapped in a quarantined …

In early May, Warren Buffett divested all of his investment firm’s holdings in the four major U.S. airlines, warning that the “world has changed” for the aviation industry due to the coronavirus crisis. In mid May, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said he saw a bumpy road ahead for the airline industry and predicted that a major carrier would not survive 2020 as a result.
It appears Buffett and Calhoun were on …